After Prevailing in Two Game 7s, Rangers Are Back at Square One

Henrik Lundqvist became the first N.H.L. goalie to win five consecutive Game 7s.

Barton Silverman / The New York Times

By JEFF Z. KLEIN

May 14, 2014

The Rangers took a well-deserved day off on Wednesday, luxuriating in the afterglow of rallying from a three-games-to-one deficit and eliminating the Pittsburgh Penguins. There could be no denying their resilient spirit; the brilliance of Henrik Lundqvist, the first N.H.L. goalie to win five consecutive Game 7s; or the team effort that gave the players on the Rangers’ current roster an 83-6 record in Game 7s.

“I’m a little surprised how much focus there is on the goalie’s record when it’s a team sport,” Lundqvist said Tuesday, moments after the Rangers had beaten Pittsburgh, 2-1. “I do my part, and they have to do theirs. We like that type of challenge.”

The Rangers have won five Game 7s over the last three playoff seasons, a first in N.H.L. history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Brad Richards, who scored the winning goal Tuesday, is 7-0 in Game 7s, including five with the Rangers. According to Elias, Red Kelly was the only other player to compile a 7-0 mark. Glenn Anderson and Ray Bourque each posted 8-0 records.

The Rangers, who for the first time in their 88-year history won a playoff series after trailing three games to one, will play Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals on Saturday at Montreal. Their challenge to reach the Stanley Cup finals, however, will be daunting. Since the playoffs expanded beyond two rounds in 1968, no team has won the Cup after playing the maximum 14 games in the first two rounds. In Round 1, the Rangers eliminated Philadelphia.

The Rangers have been at an equally fatiguing juncture before. In 2012, they reached the Eastern Conference finals after winning two seven-game series, but lost to the Devils in Game 6 in overtime.

The Canadiens advanced by beating the Bruins, 3-1, in Game 7 in Boston on Wednesday after defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning in four games in the first round.

If the Rangers hope to buck history, they will probably need the help of Rick Nash, their silenced goal-scoring star. Nash has no goals and five assists in 14 postseason games.

The odds suggest that Nash is bound to break through. He has 52 shots on goal, the most in the N.H.L. playoffs. His Corsi number, a statistic that measures puck possession, is second to Kevin Klein on the Rangers.

Perhaps no team has benefited more from the N.H.L.’s new playoff structure than the Rangers. With the first two rounds focused on division play, the Rangers drew the Flyers, a team they matched up well against. Then they moved on to meet the Penguins, chronic underachievers who have been eliminated by a lower-seeded team in five consecutive years.

Under the previous playoff system, the Rangers would have opened against the Canadiens, a tougher opponent than the Flyers. In the second round, they would probably have met the Bruins, bigger and badder than the Penguins.

The ax was expected to fall on Penguins Coach Dan Bylsma, who was being blamed for Sidney Crosby’s ineffective performance against the Rangers and in other recent playoff seasons.